The Kumar family moved from Bihar to Punjab, Kapurthala, in an attempt to find better opportunities and a better life. According to the mother, Rita Rani, “We are not very well off, but we were living comfortably as a family. We are paying a monthly rent of Rs 3,500 for this accommodation where we are living. We had recently taken a shop for Abhimanyu on a monthly rent of Rs 3,000.

Abhimanyu did not have the same optimism as his mother. He believed there was only one way out of this poverty-stricken hell: he had to kill himself and his siblings.

Before consuming it himself, Abhimanyu fed the burgers to his siblings Anu, 17, Anshu, 15, Archana, 7, and Anurag, 10. They died within minutes of consuming the burgers. Abhimanyu and another younger sibling were taken to a hospital but were unable to be saved.

Upon investigating, police found a suicide note in Abhimanyu’s back pocket. In the note, he states that he is unhappy that his parents were struggling to make ends meet. He had hoped their deaths would provide a kind of relief.

Rani had also been offered a burger, but she didn’t eat it. “All of us, except Aarti, finished dinner at 9 pm. She asked Abhimanyu to bring a burger for her. He returned with the burgers around an hour later. He made all of us eat those burgers. I tasted it but found it very bitter, thus left it. Even Aarti could not eat it since she too found it in extremely bad taste. Thus, she too left it, while the rest ate it. Then we fell off to sleep.”

Two other siblings were apparently asleep at the time and did not consume the burgers. They, along with their mother and father, are the only surviving members of the Kumar family. Police are continuing to investigate the matter.